- (female announcer)   Production funding for   Behind the Headlines   is made possible in part by   the WKNO Production Fund,   the WKNO Endowment Fund.

And by viewers like   you.

Thank you.

- Mayor Lee Harris on the budget, mental health, life beyond COVID and much more, tonight on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes With The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Shelby County Mayor, Lee Harris.

Mayor Harris, thanks for being here.

- Sure thing, thanks for having me.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

Mayor Harris, we'll talk about a lot today, but I think we still as much as we all like to move past COVID, it's still kind of defined so much of what you are dealing with right now, what all of us are dealing with.

So let's start with COVID and where are we in your, from your point of view, where are we in terms of reopening, ending masks?

Obviously the governor has said for what 89 counties they should end their mask mandates, he's asked Shelby County to do so by end of this month.

Are we at that point where we can go back to normal capacity in businesses and restaurants, and can we drop the masks or is that too soon?

- So great.

Again, thanks for having me.

I think that we have had a relatively stable numbers over the last 30 days.

And if you look at our last health directive, we gave an indication in that health directive around where things were headed with respect to economic restrictions and masking requirements.

And in that April health directive, we said by May, if the numbers were stable, we would shift the majority of those items in that health directive to a recommendation approach.

I think the numbers have been stable over the last 30 days.

And so that's at the front of conversation.

In addition to that, we're talking to public health authorities and medical experts around what they are seeing and trying to receive the best advice.

And finally, and most importantly, we are reviewing the CDC guidance.

And the CDC guidance right now, with the most recent announcements are that there are lots of activities that people can undertake without a mask.

And so the CDC talks about places where you know the status, the vaccine status that is, of people around you.

And so for a lot of people, that's gonna be a whole lot of places.

That's gonna be your office, for a lot of people, that's gonna be your home, your neighbor's home, your friend's home, your family, and a whole variety of different kinds of instances where the CDC recommends the mask purely as an option.

In addition to that, the CDC has recently said that the vast majority of outdoor activities can also be mask free.

Because for the vast majority of, the vast majority of outdoor activities, at least that I participate, and that you participate in, are probably not dense and crowded events.

- Right.

- And the CDC says in those cases, again, you can be mask free.

So I think with the CDC guidance, with our numbers being stable over the last 30 days, with the pledge we made to this community back in April, I think that we are looking to try to shift by the time the next health directive comes out to more of a recommendation-- - Right.

- We're still collecting, you know, still collecting perspective and still reviewing the data.

- Yeah.

Who makes that call at this point?

I mean, is that the task force, is that the county health director, and that could if, if the state wanted to overrule Shelby County, could they do that?

- Yeah, I think the, yeah, the state could overrule us at any time and take back their authority with respect to managing the pandemic.

I think as this was structured towards the beginning of the pandemic, the state took a relatively hands-off approach with a variety of communities.

We're one of those communities where they took a hands-off approach.

With some exceptions, right?

We know the state intervened with respect to weddings and with respect to high school sports, particularly high school football.

And so, you know, those were instances of intervention and we think there will continue to be some level of intervention on behalf of the state.

So for example, the K-12 mask requirement is a state driven decision.

And so the K-12 mask requirement will likely stick around regardless of what happens at the local level.

- One more question, and I'll go to Bill, how do we get, we have, you know, we've passed the line where there is way more supply of vaccine than there is demand.

That people are still getting vaccinated in Shelby County.

The city is obviously running the bulk of that effort now, but from your point of view, what do we need to do as a community to continue to get more people vaccinated?

- So we need more people in our community to talk about vaccination and the importance of vaccination in order to succeed at this vaccination effort.

So peer to peer influence matters a great deal.

In other words, people are prone to do what others in their networks are doing.

And so we need folks to remind others in their household, in their neighborhood, and in their networks to get the vaccine, to consider vaccination.

And that's how we'll move the needle on vaccination.

We are, you know, we've got some things that cut against us, right?

We've seen reports that communities of color are more skeptical around the vaccine.

And in addition to that, rural areas tend to be relatively skeptical around the vaccine.

And our community has a legacy, a rural history.

And in addition to that, we have significant communities of color.

And so we are working against those challenges, but I think we can do it.

We just need everyone to start talking about vaccination and reminding those close to them that they need to get vaccinated.

It is not enough for just to get a vaccination yourself.

You need to make sure that others get a vaccination too.

- All right, before I go to Bill, let me say I got vaccinated.

If you've hesitated, it was not a problem.

I was, get vaccinated, get vaccinated.

The science is very, very clear.

Bill.

- Mayor, as we reach to the end of the month, when the city has said it's going to shut down the fairgrounds and that that effort there will end, do you think there might be some momentum?

I mean, Memphis is kind of a walkup town anyway, when it comes to events, is there a parallel to vaccinations there that maybe okay, this is the last chance to get it better, better go out and get it.

- I think we have reasons to be optimistic.

I think as more people get the vaccine, I think that builds a comfort level, comfort level with those that are skeptical.

And so I think we just have to stay at it.

We have formed a variety of initiatives to continue this conversation through the summer, the COVID Community Council, which I'll help lead is fired up and ready to go.

And in fact, we have a street team project where we'll be engaging the zip code with the lowest uptake next week.

Next weekend, we'll be actually physically knocking on doors and leaving off, leaving at the doorstep information about the importance of the vaccine.

So I think it'll take those kinds of efforts, but I think they are coming together.

And I think there's reasons to be optimistic.

- All right.

A final note on the pandemic, have you heard anything from the State Health Department in their investigation that they were going to do on the early stages of how the health department handled the vaccinations?

- I've heard a great deal.

So [laughs] you have to be more specific.

I think in general, it generally, I think the findings were unsurprising, and, you know, unremarkable to, some findings were remarkable.

So I'm sure you're more concerned about the remarkable ones.

The remarkable things I've seen, which come from the CDC and its ongoing efforts to help everyone to improve vaccination and so forth, were that some health department training needed to take place.

And so the state is gonna perform that training.

They performed that training for the City of Memphis as the distribution leadership role shifted.

And so the state is planning to give the same benefit of that training to the Shelby County Health Department.

So that was one remarkable finding in my view, because it'll help the health department a great deal, to get the benefit of that training.

In addition to that, there was a finding around the status of refrigerators and making sure that the most up-to-date technology in terms of refrigerator was also available for the Shelby County Health Department.

As you recall, the Black Hawk helicopters flew down and delivered refrigerators as the shift and distribution happened across the Civic Plaza.

And so the Shelby County Health Department will likely get some refrigerators, similar refrigerators here soon.

So I think those are the only kind of remarkable findings I've seen, the rest of it is what you might expect, that there is not anything significant in those reports that I've seen.

And obviously, I've seen a variety of different kinds of statements from the State.

- Before I send it back to Eric, and we'll kind of get into the budget at that point, I think, what about the early reports of missing vaccine, stolen vaccine?

Was that true?

- We've not been able to, on my end, we've not been able to validate most of those kinds of findings.

So on my end, we have not seen any evidence that there were, is, was, any theft of any vaccine.

- And has the state weighed in on that?

Because they were pretty adamant about that at one point in this.

- Again, all I can say is we've not been able to validate those findings.

- We shift to the budget, it is budget season right now.

I think you, your office and the County Commission are aiming for an early June vote to pass the next budget.

It happens at what is just such an odd time on so many levels, which is that, you know, we're still dealing with the economic fallout of the pandemic as businesses ramp back up and certain type of employment ramps back up, but it comes in the middle of this hot housing market.

So right now, we had the reappraisal was done, we had the assessor on last week and the last couple of weeks, property values up around 20%, what do you wanna see?

Which is the way that works?

And I will do my lame explanation of the way that works right now that the Shelby County tax rate property tax rate is $4.05.

The estimates are that the property tax will come down to around $3.50 by state law.

No municipality, no county can see a windfall in taxes by a reappraisal that increases the value of properties.

Do you wanna see that property tax go down $3.50 and stay there?

And what are your budget priorities as we go forward?

- Yeah, that's right.

So I delivered a proposed budget for the County Commission that does not include a tax increase.

And so what that means is exactly what you said, Eric.

Is that our property tax rate currently is estimated to come down to about $3.50.

And so that's what I'd like to see.

I'd like to see our property tax rate stay stable and that there'll not be no property tax increase at all.

Instead the budget, I proposed to the Commission, you know, re-focuses our attention on areas of really particular need and has us live within our means.

So the budget I proposed includes things like a significant and massive contribution to our rainy day fund, because there was too much spending on non-essential priorities over the last budget cycle.

And our rainy day fund was depleted and in non-compliance and that's no way to manage a organization.

We have to manage this organization like every household in America, and we need to focus on spending the revenues we have and not spend more than what we have.

And so in order to replenish our rainy day fund, I've made a proposal to make an investment there, a significant investment.

In addition to that, I've proposed that we focus on public health, public education, and public safety.

And so there are significant investments on all three, in all three domains in the budget with the particular investment in our fire department of around $30 million across multiple years.

That's gonna enable us to take care of the annexed areas, enable us to build new fire stations and hire scores of new fire personnel.

And so we're excited to engage with the Commission and we're hopeful that, you know, we won't spend too much money.

That's the fingers crossed issue, is that we won't spend like a drunken sailor who gets three days leave and spends his wad in the first 15 minutes of dis-embarkment.

[Eric laughs] - Is it exciting, or is it excitement that you're looking forward to?

But yes, we are going to that season.

And last, you know, last year, we don't have to relive all that, but there was definitely some differences of opinion between your office and the Commission.

One question I have though is, and I should say on tax rates, that the city tax rate is separate and all the municipality tax rates are separate.

City of Memphis is estimating that the tax rate will go down to $2.75.

It is a really dramatic shift in for people who live in the city to be below $7 for the first time, and Bill has the numbers, but I think it's decades.

But back to the money, how much federal money, I mean there've been a number of big spending bills at the federal level that have, I think, the last one included a certain amount of money for localities.

How much of the, how much money are you getting from the federal government as part of the CARES Act or any of this COVID relief they've done.

And it's probably, I assume it's one time money and what's it going toward?

- So we've not received any money yet.

- Really?

- But we have received estimates of what we might receive and it'll be tens of millions of dollars.

And across the years, it could be upwards of $180 million.

And so we have proposed to treat the money like all public dollars and treat it sacredly to make sure we use that money to take care of key priorities.

And so in this budget cycle, the vast majority of money we anticipate we'll receive this year, is used to cure the deficits we faced over the last year from the changes that COVID wrought, and the spending, you know, some of the spending decisions that probably should not have taken place.

And so we'll, as I said, we'll make a significant contribution to our rainy day fund and cure some of those deficits from last year and the current year using some of the federal stimulus dollars that we are set to receive.

And from there-- - How?

- we have several years to spend the rest of it.

And so that'll be a conversation that's driven by the Commission and our office to make sure that we key in on some real priorities in this community.

- And when you, is that include the money for education?

In the hun--, as much as hundred mill--, hundreds of millions of dollars you mentioned, is that include education money?

- I think that education piece is a separate piece.

I know that Commission is taking a look at that to see whether or not that money passes through county government or is directly, directly flows to the school district.

My guess is it flows directly to the school district and Shelby County will have nothing to do with that money.

But some of that is still remains to be clarified.

- Okay, let me go back to Bill.

- And I think that the State Comptroller Jason Mumpower briefed the County Commission yesterday and said that the education funding would actually flow through the state department of education to the school systems.

So a lot of different moving pieces on this.

Mayor, what if the County Commission got a re-certified rate of let's say $3.50, just as an example.

But then decided, all right, well, let's raise that a penny or so, but still keep it under $4, the $4 mark and make an even bigger contribution to the rainy day fund or the fund balance for the county.

Would that be acceptable to you?

- No, no, that would not be acceptable.

Our rainy day fund is going to be at sufficient levels under the proposed budget.

And so there will be no need to raise taxes, and the scenario you described is a tax increase.

There'll be no reason to raise taxes for that purpose.

I'm not saying I am against taxes in every single case.

I've never taken a tax pledge, for example, or some such.

I mean, there may be really important items for which there is complete public consensus around that are worthy of additional revenues.

So the things that come to mind to me are probably around education.

So if there's some way to really move the needle on an important public topic like education, I think I'm all ears.

But spending for spending sake is something that you know, I can't be a part of.

And so a tax increase, just because the smoke and mirrors of the re-certification process is not a reason to do it.

- That there is so much talk on the Commission as there was last year, there remains talk of a structural imbalance.

Is there a structural imbalance that it is, are the county's finances at a disadvantage going into the process?

- There's a structural imbalance.

Yes, to be sure.

So the budget that was approved last year, which I couldn't sign because of the spending that was embedded in that budget, that budget spent more than the revenues we took in.

So that is at an imbalance.

Because a lot of that spending is recurring spending and there is not recurring revenues to meet those spending desires.

So the good news though, is that the proposal that I put forward to the Commission is structurally balanced and gives us a path forward to maintaining structural balance over the next several years.

It'll be tough, right?

It'll be tough.

We still have some issues that need to be resolved but this is the first step in resolving those issues and putting us on a path toward structural balance.

- And before we go back to Eric, and that would be done in your proposal, without a property tax hike after the re-certified rate is set?

- There should be no property tax hike after the re-certification process.

- All right.

I wanna move on to initiative that you announced recently on mental health.

And the summary of it is that the county fire department paramedics now have other option for dealing with people dealing with mental health issues, of taking them to a mental health healthcare provider versus to an emergency room.

When you say that out loud, you think, well, duh.

But that's, I think that's people who don't understand how not just in Memphis and Shelby County, but in this country, mental health is not treated in many cases, very, in a very complicated way, in an appropriate way.

So I'm curious how did...

Expand a little on what the program is and how it came about?

- So that's right.

And I think this is probably one of the first times it's happened, has happened in the region.

In other words, our law enforcement officials have variety of different tools when they meet a crisis, but our EMS, the Shelby County EMS, don't have the same, you know, group of tools.

And so if they were confronted with a mental health crisis, the strategy, the only strategy was to send that patient to the emergency room.

And what we learned during the course of the pandemic and as you said, which should have been obvious all along, is that that is no good for the EMS personnel.

That is no good for the patient and that's no good for the county.

When you think about the cost of emergency room practice, that's more expensive than more appropriate service.

Obviously, a patient in the mental health crisis would be better positioned to get services from an actual mental health provider.

And during the pandemic, the lines, and the processing, and getting in and out was terribly difficult in emergency rooms.

And so our EMS personnel could be held up for significant periods of the day as they try to navigate a drop off at an emergency room during a pandemic.

It was a terrible thing.

And so what we've introduced is a new option that if it's a mental health crisis, that the patient could go to a mental health provider.

And so we're optimistic about it.

It still could be described as a pilot phase right now, but what we've started with is to make sure that all our EMS personnel are trained on the new process.

And so they receive that training regularly at this juncture.

We also, in addition to that, trained our 911 dispatchers, to make sure our 911 dispatchers could do a couple things, prepare our EMS in advance of what to expect when they arrive on the scene.

And in addition to that, deescalate the situation if need be.

And so for that reason, a lot of these reforms are not just mental health reforms, they're also criminal justice reforms.

Because a lot of the national news that you see is about situations that escalate, that in certain instances could have been deescalated.

If everyone had the proper training and the proper options on the table.

And so this is all part of that, and there are other, lot of mental health reforms that we're undertaking right now, but that's one of them.

And that's the most recent that was approved by the County Commission.

- And that's, I believe, a $50,000 contract, which sounds like a lot of money on one level, but isn't, you know, a huge amount of money in the context of a billion dollar budget.

And it's with Alliance Healthcare Services.

I imagine that you like, and that you went where I wanted to go which is, it has the echoes of police reform.

And, you know, I mean, as someone in conversation about police reform here in the last year said, "Why do we send a police officer to deal with a homeless person?"

Now, not a dangerous, violent, homeless, take that out, right?

That's, you need a police officer for that.

But a homeless person often has mental health issues, has healthcare issues, has, you know just the struggles of living on the street and we send police officers.

So is this a first step in that direction of trying to address what we see as public needs not always with the police, and not always with fire department?

Is this part of a broader strategy that you wanna pursue?

- Absolutely.

Part of what's needed in terms of police reform and so forth is that we need to stop asking our officers to do so many things and be, and wear so many hats.

And so there, the social worker, the nurse, and the de-escalator, and also the peacekeeper.

And it's very hard to do all of those different roles successfully.

And so this is part of opening up that discussion.

In addition to that, we have the same sort of approach, wrong-headed approach, with respect to our jails, and the other parts of our criminal justice system.

And so we use our jails for detox, right?

That's not appropriate.

And so part of this later reform is over the long-term is trying to make sure that we understand that a lot of folks in our jails are there because they are in a mental health crisis or have substance abuse in their background.

And how do you make sure they get the services that they need more quickly so that their cases can be processed more appropriately.

That's gonna have game changing benefits for our entire community, for the folks that are in the jail, for the cost to all of us running that jail and so forth.

And so that's coming down the pike.

And then the final piece I'll mention is domestic violence.

A lot of our public safety difficulties, a lot of these interactions that go wrong and so forth, start with domestic violence, right?

That is one of the most high volume criminal incidents that we have in our community right now.

That's one of the largest explanatory issues with respect to homicide, because domestic violence leads to domestic homicide.

The Crime Commission tells us that domestic violence has been up during the course of the pandemic.

And so domestic violence is one of those places where folks are in crisis, and we need to identify their crisis and get them the help they need, in that household sooner, rather than later.

And so one reform we did was called Safe Leave, which was also approved by the County Commission.

And this the idea that we wanna model the kind of reform in the county that we wanna see out in the wider world, is the idea that employees of the county should be able to take leave from work in order to address domestic violence at the start.

They should be able to visit with law enforcement and so forth.

- With apologies to Bill, because we only have a minute left here, was the county right to extend the Wellpath mental health contract that Wellpath is the outsourced provider of mental health services in the jail and Juvenile Justice Center, or is it time to put that out to bid and have somebody else come in?

- So as you know, Wellpath has been the provider for 25 years.

And so this debate has gone on for the last 25 years.

We don't have a lot of time, but I'm gonna bring this thing to a close.

[laughs] Before my term is up.

- Okay.

- Thanks very much.

- Okay.

One more question again with not enough time, the Byhalia pipeline, should it be stopped?

And is it in, would you like to see more regulation of the aquifer?

- Oh yeah, I would love for it to be stopped.

And of course we put forth regulation that would effectively stop, not just the Byhalia pipeline, but all pipelines that are built too close to our community, which will put in danger neighborhoods, and could possibly put in danger our water supply.

- All right.

Thank you.

And again, apologies to Bill for leaving out the end there, but thank you mayor for being here.

We appreciate it.

We will be doing a full show on the Byhalia pipeline as soon as we can get everybody scheduled.

But that is all the time we have this week.

Join us again next week.

If you missed any of the show, you can get the full video at wkno.org, or you can download the podcast of Behind the Headlines at The Daily Memphian site or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks, and we'll see you next week.

[intense orchestral music] [acoustic guitar chords]